BPL 144

Leiden, UB, BPL 144

Date: 1175-1200?

Place of origin: Netherlands?

Parchment manuscript, 94 folia; 227x155 mm, gothic textualis, Latin.

Contents: Boethius, On the Consolation of Philosophy; Martianus Capella, On the marriage of Philology and Mercury, book I-II; Macrobius, Commentary on Cicero’s Dream of Scipio (in part)

Special features: This is a book with two texts that combine prose and poetry (Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and Martianus’s Marriage of Philology and Mercury), and a small part of Cicero’s curious text The Dream of Scipio explained by Macrobius: three late-ancient texts full of philosophical ideas about the world and its meaning. The three texts would have appealed to an advanced scholarly audience, showing ancient poetical techniques, intricate Latin and foreign, complicated philosophical theories. The book has different layers of annotations: from the 12th century (planned in the original lay-out of the book) and later layers, which also make use of signs, faces, hands and other drawings to point at places of particular interest in the text.

This is the opening page of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (f. 2r). In this work, which was written part in poetry (opening lines on this page), part in prose (last six lines on this page) was very popular in medieval schools. It had beautiful poetry and prose ánd appropriate moral lessons: it could thus be used for the teaching of Latin grammar and style, and for moral education and philosophy.

That the text was used for education, is clear from the lay-out of the page: it is such that enough marginal space is provided for commentary (70% of the page is margin!), and that notes could be added between the lines for a more detailed explanation of words, their grammatical form and their meaning.

Two layers of commentary have been added: a first (see red boxes), contemporary set of annotations and a younger one (see blue boxes), to be dated to the last quarter of the 13th century (roughly a century later). The two can be kept apart by looking at two things: 1. the lay-out: the original notes were planned on the page in columns alongside the text and in between the lines; and 2. the script: the original notes are in a smaller but essentially the same script, whereas the later notes are in a different, more cursive script. The ink colour is also slightly different: the original layer is in a dark brown ink, whereas the later layer is darker, almost black, and made with a pen with a sharper point. Occasionally, other hands have also added notes. In this close up, we also see an even later hand (see green box) adding a note in a greyish ink.

Note that the two hands even have different ways of calling attention to certain elements in the text: they both use ‘Nota’ to signal important elements in the text, but in the original layer, the ‘Nota’ is written in a different way, and sometimes not written at all, but replaced with a head, a hand or even a foot (?)!

The later hand interacts with the text in a more ‘personal’ way: he adds hands pointing to interesting passages in the text, brings in little sketches such as here the ‘Wheel of Fortune’: it illustrates the famous description of Boethius of the inevitable cycle of human fame and downfall: from the top to the bottom and up again.

A selection of hands and other drawings calling attention to certain passages in the text

On this page (f. 18r), two ‘talking heads’ are drawn, one of them wearing a ‘cappa’ or hat, the other not. Graduating from the medieval university involved a dress code: the new master was to wear a cappa, a certain cloak and certain shoes. So here, we could suggest that this is a drawing of a master and a student talking: the process of explaining the text, of understanding it by reading it together, is illustrated.

We can see that the manuscript has been slightly cut, but perhaps these faces, hands and other pointers were deliberately close to the edge of the page so that passages pop out immediately when browsing through the manuscript.

Opening with the text of Martianus Capella, De nuptiis:

A small area with the main text in the centre, surrounded by a large margin completely filled with commentary. The commentary text is larger than the main text. But here only one layer: the contemporary hand, copying a set commentary tradition into the margin and interlinear spaces.

Towards the end of the book, a fragment of Marcrobius’ Commentary on the Dream of Scipio can be found, written in France around 1100. Here no contemporary commentary is found, but the 13th century reader who added his notes to Boethius is very active here. At the bottom of this page, you can also see an annotation in a faded writing, probably with a lead point. It is difficult to tell when this was added.

The thirteenth-century hand adding notes and cosmological diagrams

The material state of this manuscript is not great. The text is executed with style and precision, but it was not written on top quality parchment. It was a functional book made for use and study, not for display.

Here you can see that the material was already damaged when the scribe was copying the commentary into the margins: he/she deals with the damaged parchment and the hole in it.